


i'm the villain, but you're the one who lies

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [20]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Cognitive Dissonance, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:55:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Roman is dead, and, after everything that's happened, Thomas and the Sides can't help but feel relieved.All the Sides, but one.
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1453462
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13
Collections: anonymous





	i'm the villain, but you're the one who lies

**Author's Note:**

> one - yeah, i haven't updated since february of last year. what of it?  
> two - i've been working on this on-and-off since, like, autumn? maybe the end of summer? so if the tone suddenly changes, i'm making up for the fact that it doesn't look like it was written in one evening by not reading over it  
> three - if you're new to this series, many things won't make sense. i gave janus a different name with the anticipation that it wouldn't be his canonical name, and, since it's not, i get to go into my reasoning behind it and stuff and basically i'm going nuts on a years-old headcanon i have for jimjan's function  
> four - hehehe mental illness recovery upward spiral goes brrrrrr  
> five - yes i am listening to natalie chavez's songs on loop, what of it?
> 
> content warnings: discussion of depression and suicide attempts, relief at the death of a loved one, anger at the relief at the death of the loved one, poorly dealing with emotions of the self and others, remus-typical sexual references, and vague references to past body horror

“Bitch,” Remus spits out, glowering at the part of the floor that Hope’s fluffy head had just sunk through, even as Ethan staggers towards that very spot as if trying to chase him.

“Remus!”

A moment after the words ring through the air, Thomas flinches, because that wasn’t him.

No, it was. It’s always him, having these stupid arguments with himself, then getting mad because he’s not listening to his own advice, but that one word, in that specific tone of voice, doesn’t belong in any part of the world but Thomas’s memory.

He’s getting distracted. That’s bad. He’s got to stay on-topic, even if that topic is… _This_.

“Why would you call Hope such a rude thing?” asks Thomas, doing his best to sound more like a version of himself that, well, sounds like himself, and not his other self. “Also, when did you even get here?”

Remus blows a raspberry in response. “It’s not like he could hear. And-” He wriggles his fingers in some kind of flippant wave, “-it’s not like anyone can notice my arrival from the smell, or the abstract terror that washes over them whenever I show up.”

“Oh, great,” Ethan mutters. “So we’re _not_ finished here.”

“That’s not the point!” Thomas exclaims. “Why would you call him that in the first place?”

With a long, unimpressed stare towards Thomas, and a long, pointed gesture towards the patch of floor that once contained Hope, Remus says, “He was being a bitch.”

“No he wasn’t,” says Logan. Thomas goes to agree, but then Logan continues with, “A bitch is a female dog. Hope is part of Thomas’s embodied and exaggerated personality, and Thomas is a male human. His gender identity carries over to the rest of us.”

By the time Logan has finished, Thomas gestures out with the hand that was previously massaging his glabella between his thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, thanks for the clarity, but I’m fairly certain that Remus meant the other definition.”

“I-” Logan nods. “Ah, yes.”

“And he was right about that one,” Virgil says.

Thomas squints. “How?”

“No, he wasn’t.” Ethan rolls his eyes. “He’s just trying to make you feel bad about the way your grief is manifesting.”

“He said that he’s _glad_ Roman’s dead,” Remus growls through gritted teeth, pointedly ignoring Ethan in favour of staring very intently at Thomas, “and I don’t know what it’s like in your happy little world, but where I am, death isn’t exactly something to be happy about.”

“Death is a fact of life, just like being born and growing up is.” Logan shrugs, pushing up his glasses, and adds, “It doesn’t seem like something that is either happy or sad, to me at least. It simply _is_.”

Remus rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but you’re Thomas’s boring basic brain. You’re all, _‘Thomas, brush your teeth’_ , _‘Thomas, your subsistence is unsustainable’_ , and, like, that’s fine, but this is about feelings. Ever heard of them?”

“I have, in fact,” says Logan. “In addition to my basic functions, I’m aware of the effects of many moods and emotions. I may experience alexithymic tendencies, but I’m not ignorant, and I have developed a deep understanding of the experience of grief. We literally just went over that.”

“Then you agree that Hope was being a bitch!”

Remus says it with so much surety that Thomas half-expects Logan to agree. Still, he isn’t surprised when Logan flatly states, “No.”

“But Hope literally said that he’s glad that Roman’s dead,” says Virgil, his mouth pulled in teeth-baring bewilderment. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t sound like the nicest thing to say. And right in front of Remus? Yeah, that was pretty bitchy.”

“I can understand why you feel that way, and it’s a perfectly fine and valid reaction,” Logan soothes.

Virgil doesn’t seem very soothed. “And you’re going to tell me why I’m wrong, now, aren’t you?”

“ _Please_ tell him why he’s wrong,” Ethan adds.

“Why? Neither reaction is wrong, in any sense of the word.”

Ethan stares at Logan, unimpressed. “So, the fact that they’re upset about the Side who made me want to kill myself being gone, that’s just fine?”

Logan holds his hands out, palms facing upwards as he shrugs, like he’s offering something.

“Of course it is,” he says, exactly as Thomas thought he would.

Ethan raises a hand, brushing his fingers against each other in a way that could be called ‘snapping’, if he wasn’t wearing his gloves. “And yet, Logan is neglecting to mention that Hope’s reaction is just as acceptable as Remus’s and Virgil’s.”

“I-I don’t really have any-” Virgil glances between Remus and Ethan, “-any strong feelings either way. It just… It still feels like a jerk move to say that you’re glad someone’s dead.”

“Would you not have been glad if someone – let’s make someone up, for the case of not being put on an FBI watchlist – if someone such as a hypothetical President of the United States died before being able to implement policies that have horrifically affected the most vulnerable members of our society?” Ethan dryly asks, raising an eyebrow.

Virgil splutters. “I- That has nothing to do with this!”

“Really? This has nothing to do with an unchecked ego targeting someone in a position of vulnerability, with the express purpose of doing them harm?”

“Okay, Ethan, I know you’re trying to look out for me,” says Thomas, “but that’s just… Really going too far.”

Ethan shrugs. “He tried to kill you, or have you forgotten?”

“I mean, if he _had_ forgotten, it would probably be because of _you_ , Immanuel Kant-be-assed.”

Virgil rests his chin on his fist, glaring at Ethan through heavily-lidded eyes; a glare that Ethan returns with impassive coldness.

Fuck, Thomas needs to distract them. No, wait! There’s something that needs to be addressed.

“And I know that you’re only trying to protect me in any way you can,” says Thomas, trying to sound patient without seeming patronising (and probably failing, if past performance is any indication), “but Roman was part of me. To try to claim… It’s… I’m the one who…” He looks around, blinking his flickering eyes, before settling his gaze on the figure to his right. “Logan, can you explain?”

“Certainly.” Logan pushes his glasses up the ridge of his nose and almost quirks an eyebrow, before catching himself. It might seem mocking, were he to behave in a way that could be misconstrued as arrogant. “I understand that it is easy to forget this, due to the amount of cognitive dissonance that Thomas has been experiencing in the past months, but we are all still parts of him. I mean no offence when I say that I believe that might have affected you more strongly than the rest of us, Ethan.”

Ethan doesn’t have any qualms about being perceived in such a way, because he raises an eyebrow and tilts his head subtly, but with a sharp stiffness that clearly conveys some kind of challenge. “Are you implying that I’ve been failing to fulfil my purpose?”

“Absolutely not. Quite the opposite, really.”

And Thomas watches Logan watch as Ethan’s face falters for a fraction of a second, before he collects himself and smirks. “Please, elaborate. I’d love to hear about how I don’t understand Thomas, the person that I exist to protect.”

“And that’s the source of the difficulty,” says Logan, rounding out the sounds in his mouth with precise phonetics. “As Self-Preservation, you serve to protect Thomas from potential harm-”

“What am I, then? You can’t just give him my job like that!”

Logan nods to Virgil, but doesn’t look away from Ethan as he continues to explain, “-in a different way to how Anxiety already does. While Virgil seeks out immediate dangers that might hurt Thomas, such as cars that might hit him, actions that could cause friends and loved ones to leave him, and other such things, you protect his mind; his sense of self.”

“So, you’re telling me that I’m definitely failing to do my job, then?” asks Ethan, with unspeakably deep sarcasm.

Of course, Logan answers it anyway.

“Falsehood. I’m actually telling you that you’re very good at your job, to the point where it could become harmful if left unchecked.”

Ethan’s mouth opens, then closes. This repeats a few times, until Logan seems to accept that he won’t be speaking for a while.

“You seem to be trying to protect Thomas by employing similar methods as you did when we were split into Core Sides and Others; namely, repression and compartmentalisation. By blaming Thomas’s self-destructive ideations solely on Roman, you downplay each of our own contributions to that mindset.”

“Are you implying something, Logan?” asks Ethan, steepling his fingers against each other.

Logan shakes his head. “Absolutely not. Actually, at the very least, not _yet_. You and Hope are the only Sides who have consistently remained vehement upon the idea of Thomas remaining alive, no matter what.”

“Always a great day when I logically believe I’d be better off dead,” Thomas sighs, mostly to himself. Still, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Logan’s face twist in an emotion that he doesn’t want to identify.

“Still-” The word comes out scratchy and dry. Logan coughs for a moment, and repeats, “Still, you are part of Thomas. Your feelings are as valid and true as any other Side’s. And, still, that means that their feelings are as valid as yours.”

Thomas sucks in his bottom lip to bite on it for a moment, and swallows the lump in his throat like a barely-chewed bread roll. It’s feels like it’s bulging in Thomas’s oesophagus as it slowly gets forced down.

“Ethan, I really appreciate how you’re helping me to recover from my mental illness, but blaming Roman for my suicide attempt isn’t the way to go about it. Because, well,” Thomas shrugs, uncertain of his facial expression, “it was my suicide attempt. Not Roman’s – or, well, not _just_ Roman’s. Mine.”

He looks up. Ethan is stony-faced.

“I’m relieved that Roman’s dead, because he was the embodiment of my suicidal thoughts,” says Thomas, “but he was the embodiment of my suicidal thoughts because he was my hopes, dreams, and passion. Before he and Remus fused like they did, and even a bit after, my greatest wish was to just… Not have to be alive anymore.”

“And then he died, and you couldn’t even get the guts to slit your wrists.” Remus’s voice comes out in some kind of mix of a groan and a sigh. The only way Thomas could describe it would be _resigned_.

Ethan’s eyes flicker to stare, unblinkingly, at Remus.

“Keep your snake in your pants, Ethan Mess. I know what it sounds like, but I’m actually _glad_ that Thomas is alive.”

Virgil raises an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Yeah, that’s because it’s easy to fool you,” snorts Remus. “Like, sometimes, I’ll make the shadows on the ceiling twitch in the middle of the night, and you just keep checking every part of Thomas’s room to find the source of it.”

“I _knew_ it wasn’t just my imagination, asshole!”

Thomas lets out a small huff of air through his nose. Maybe Remus will get distracted-

“But that doesn’t mean that I take back what I said! Hope’s still a fucking bitch!”

Or not. Of course not.

“And it’s alright that you feel that way, Remus,” says Logan. “Your relationship with Roman was different from everyone else’s. You were close in a way the rest of us weren’t.”

Remus blinks, one eye at a time. “That’s a really weird way to say that we literally shared a brain at one point, but okay.”

Logan groans. “I can’t even blame you for that mistake. I meant figuratively close. You understood each other in a way that the rest of us could never do.”

“Yeah, that’s because we literally shared a brain. It’s hard not to think someone else’s thoughts when they’re hardwired into you, you know!”

“ _That is to say_ , even though it’s not just metaphorical, it doesn’t mean that either of you are wrong, either,” adds Virgil. “Like, for Logan and me, Roman was one of our best friends. I mean, Logan’s the only one left now from the first Sanders Sides video. That’s kind of screwed up, right?”

Thomas nods.

“Anyway, it’s not just that. Even then, me and Logan are going to grieve him in different ways, because we’re different people.”

“No we’re not,” Logan huffs, gesturing with one unfolded arm to Thomas. “We’re literally all the same person. How are you forgetting this?”

Rolling his eyes, Virgil says, “Fine, we’re different aspects of the same person, embodying a variety ways to view and experience the world.”

Virgil offers a questioning thumbs-up, which Logan answers with a matching gesture of his own.

“I don’t know how the fuck Ethan feels, but Hope only really became aware of the whole _existing_ thing after you’d already become the, you know.” Virgil wiggles his hands, intertwining his fingers with themselves. “Brain-share thingy.”

“Are you blaming me for Hope existing?” asks Remus. “Because, I mean, I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a compliment or not. He might be the physical embodiment of Thomas’s mental health improving, but the bitch is glad my brother’s dead.”

“He is, and that’s okay,” Thomas says, “and you’ve made it clear that you’re upset about that, and that’s also okay.”

“So what’re you going to do about it?”

Thomas blinks. “What?”

“What’re you gonna do about it?” Remus asks again, raising his hands while staring at Thomas like he’s being unfathomably stupid. “Tell me which of us is wrong. Bring Hope back into the video! We can settle it _mano a mano_! I mean, fighting’s how they settle shit in Pokémon, unless he’s too much of a Vul-bitch to face my Poli- _wrath_.”

“I’m not going to do that,” says Thomas. “I’m not going to summon Hope just for you to argue with him.”

“Uh, yeah, no shit. I didn’t ask you to.” Remus glares at Thomas in a way that clearly emphasises that even though he had low expectations for his Centre, said Centre had still failed to meet them. “I asked you to summon him so I can beat the shit out of him.”

Thomas shakes his head. “No beating, either! No tussling, skirmishing, punching, or pounding!”

“But I’m already being pounded!” says Remus. “Pounded in the butt by the futile rage of my inability to process my grief, by Chuck _fucking_ Tingle.”

“I suppose it would be some form of absurdist satire, Remus, correct?” Logan asks.

Remus hums. “Yeah, but, like, it’s a really horny vent fic.”

“Great! Go write it!” Virgil bares his teeth in what could, charitably, be called a smile. “And don’t show it to me. Or beat up Hope. Actually, as long as you don’t hurt Hope, you can do whatever you want with it. Including waking me up by dramatically reading it to me at twenty to three in the morning.”

“That sounds great, V-card; it’s really nice, except _I don’t want to do that_!” Remus’s sudden screech makes Thomas’s entire body jolt, and he sees Virgil grab onto the staircase railing to avoid falling down. “I want to _kick Hope’s ass_!”

“Remus.”

“He’s just so smug and fucking angel-faced and _he doesn’t know what I’ve lost_!”

“ _Remus_.”

“I woke up and I didn’t have a _brother_ , and now I don’t know who the fuck I am because, like, now I _am_ my brother, or something shitty like that! Like Thomas just jumbled us up and pulled us apart in a different way and it’s _his_ fault, too! I’m gonna fucking-”

“ _Remus_!”

Remus’s hand claps over his mouth.

“I will not allow you to harm Hope, and I sure as _hell_ won’t let you hurt Thomas.” Ethan’s voice sounds steady, but Thomas can see his fists trembling. “You’re talking us around in circles; always bringing us back to the same points that we keep going over. We can’t get anywhere with you acting like this. You’re far too angry to listen to reason right now, so you should go to your room to calm down.”

Thomas watches as Remus pulls his hand away, leaving blood smeared over his palm and his mouth, and slicking half his moustache in the wrong direction. He’s not sure how the blood got there, but, seeing as it’s Remus, he doesn’t question it.

“You can’t lock me away again,” he snarls. “You can’t put the horrors back in Pandora’s Box now you’ve let them out.”

Ethan raises his eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure! You only managed to keep me and Roman locked up because we weren’t trying to leave!”

“Because I didn’t need or want to waste the energy. This, however, is an entirely different matter,” Ethan says.

Remus lets out a rather Virgil-like hiss, blood glinting on his grinning teeth. “Go ahead, then. Do your worst.”

Beside him, Ethan pushes downwards on the air, his gloved fingers splayed and curled like claws, and, with the shuddering slowness of a possibly-stoppable force meeting a slightly-less-immovable object, Remus sinks into the floor.

With each inch of height he loses, Remus’s smile grows wider as he refuses to break eye contact with Ethan, staring like a Stanley Kubrick poster while Ethan keeps his jaw clenched and tilted up.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d changed, not really,” he smirks, mid-thigh into the floor, “but it’s nice to be proven right, Janus.”

And, in the third of a second it takes for Thomas to blink in surprise at the new name, Remus vanishes.

* * *

In the end, it takes a minute for Ethan’s – for Janus’s – carefully constructed persona to collapse in on itself.

Everything he’s made and destroyed and rebuilt of himself, carving off the parts that don’t fit into the mould of the Side that Thomas needs him to be, and lying and leaning on loopholes and metaphors; it’s all for nothing, isn’t it?

And, well, there’s only one thing to say to that.

Ethan runs a hand through his hair, knocking his bowler hat completely off his head, and mutters, “Son of a goddamn _bitch_.”

**Author's Note:**

> oh yeah and i have a tss blog now - [@lifewithoutrainydays](https://lifewithoutrainydays.tumblr.com/)


End file.
